Springfield Now Has $5.4M in HUD Grants to Address Lead, Other Health Hazards in Homes
The City of Springfield announced it is the recipient of a $2 million award from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through its Healthy Homes Production Grant Program. HUD announced nearly $104.7 million in awards to 60 non-profit organizations, state and local government agencies in 29 states. The Healthy Homes program is aimed to identify health and safety hazards in low-income family homes, protecting children and families with incomes at or below eighty percent of the area median income level. The focus is to remediate significant lead and health hazards. Mayor Jim Langfelder stated,
“The success of our community not only relies on economic development but, on our ability to provide safe and healthy homes for our families. Through this assistance, we can eliminate lead, along with other home hazards, in 135 residences. This work, led by our Office of Planning & Economic Development, is critical in our continued efforts to improve the lives of our residents, neighborhoods, and workforce.”
The Healthy Homes Production Grant Program takes a comprehensive approach to addressing multiple childhood diseases and injuries in the home by focusing on housing-related hazards in a coordinated fashion, rather than addressing a single hazard at a time. The program builds upon HUD’s successful Lead Hazard Control programs to expand the department’s efforts to holistically address a variety of high-priority housing-based health and safety hazards, such as mold and moisture, poor indoor air quality, pests, carbon monoxide, injury, and safety hazards, in addition to lead-based paint.
“Springfield has more than 3,500 rental units that were constructed prior to 1940 making the city one of the largest areas in downstate in need of lead and healthy homes remediation activities,” said Krista Kolis, Operations Coordinator for the City’s Office of Planning & Economic Development.
“These funds will be used to improve the living environments of 135 prioritized low to moderate-income housing units single-family, owner-occupied and rental units (1-4 units) throughout Springfield over a 42-month period.” said the Coordinator.
This is the second grant awarded to the City of Springfield in six months to address Lead and health hazards in homes throughout Springfield, from HUD. This past August, the City was awarded $3.4 million to address lead hazards and Healthy Home hazards in 169 housing units, to provide safer homes for low- to moderate-income families with children in Springfield.
The City is working on program guidelines and implementation strategies for both programs. The goal is to make the applications available for families who are interested and eligible for both lead and Healthy Homes and the Healthy Homes Production grant programs by March.
What is HUD Public Housing Program
Public housing was established to provide decent and safe rental housing for eligible low-income families. Public housing comes in all sizes and types, from scattered single-family houses to high-rise apartments for elderly families.
Who is eligible for HUD Public Housing Program?
Public housing is limited to low-income families and individuals and eligibility is based on annual gross income and U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status. If you are eligible, a public housing agency will check your references to make sure you and your family will be good tenants. Any applicant whose habits and practices may be expected to have a detrimental effect on other tenants or on the project’s environment will be denied.
How can I contact someone?
For further assistance, visit the following website and click on “Local Offices”, located on the left side of the page: http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/states
For additional information, please contact the Public and Indian Housing (PIH) Customer Service Center at: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/about/css
Or you may call us at 1-800-955-2232, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (EST) daily, Monday through Friday.
